The bloggers, too, are capable of a modicum of self-reflection. For his part, Simmons argues that the lad-maggiest sports blogs, like Deadspin and the Big Lead, should ease up on traffic-generating but salacious posts about drunk athletes and the like. And in time, he predicts, they will. “The blogs will figure it out,” he says. “It’s still early. I have faith.”

The best reason for optimism, though, may be the relentless convergence of old and new media. That aforementioned Ryan piece? The one that criticized Bill Simmons’s take on the Celtics and Lakers? It appeared — wait for it — on Ryan’s blog, And Another Thing . . . (Incidentally, Leitch was just named a contributing editor at New York magazine.) Five years from now, every sportswriter lucky enough to have a paying job will be blogging, too. And if they have complaints about the work their lesser-known colleagues are doing, they’ll have to focus on the merits of the content, not on the mode of delivery. Which is exactly how it should be.

BULLY FOR BU! | March 12, 2010 After six years at the Phoenix , I recently got my first pre-emptive libel threat. It came, most unexpectedly, from an investigative reporter. And beyond the fact that this struck me as a blatant attempt at intimidation, it demonstrated how tricky journalism's new, collaboration-driven future could be.

STOP THE QUINN-SANITY! | March 03, 2010 The year is still young, but when the time comes to look back at 2010's media lowlights, the embarrassing demise of Sally Quinn's Washington Post column, "The Party," will almost certainly rank near the top of the list.

RIGHT CLICK | February 19, 2010 Back in February 2007, a few months after a political neophyte named Deval Patrick cruised to victory in the Massachusetts governor's race with help from a political blog named Blue Mass Group (BMG) — which whipped up pro-Patrick sentiment while aggressively rebutting the governor-to-be's critics — I sized up a recent conservative entry in the local blogosphere.

RANSOM NOTES | February 12, 2010 While reporting from Afghanistan two years ago, David Rohde became, for the second time in his career, an unwilling participant rather than an observer. On October 29, 1995, Rohde had been arrested by Bosnian Serbs. And then in November 2008, Rohde and two Afghan colleagues were en route to an interview with a Taliban commander when they were kidnapped.

POOR RECEPTION | February 08, 2010 The right loves to rant against the "liberal-media elite," but there's one key media sector where the conservative id reigns supreme: talk radio.